Caterpillar considers closing York distribution center

Vehicles leave the exit of the old Caterpillar plant in York in 1996 during the 3:30 p.m. shift change. Caterpillar's larger manufacturing operation left the site in 1998. (FILE)

Caterpillar might close its York Distribution Center in Springettsbury Township.

The facility at 600 Memory Lane employs 250 workers, who were notified in September 2012 about the possibility of moving work from York County to a "facility in the eastern United States," spokesman Jim Dugan wrote in an email.

The company intends to finalize the decision by the end of March. The move would take effect in 2014.

In 1998, the Illinois-based company closed its larger manufacturing operation, cutting more than 1,000 jobs locally. Many of those employees were represented by the United Auto Workers, who engaged in contraction negotiations that included a 17-month-long strike.

After the plant closure, the site was sold in 2002 for $10 million. It is now the York Business Center.

In March 2011, the United Auto Workers reached a tentative labor agreement with Caterpillar, averting a possible walkout.

At the time, the union represented 9,500 of Caterpillar's hourly production and maintenance workers, including those remaining at the local distribution facility.

"In short, we are still contemplating a decision about possibly moving work from York, but no decision has been made," Dugan wrote.

Caterpillar, at a glance

Caterpillar announced in 1991, three years before its 17-month workers' strike, that the company would probably close its manufacturing plant on Memory Lane in Springettsbury Township.

Between June 21, 1994, and Dec. 3, 1995, roughly 13,000 members of the United Auto Workers union, including about 1,400 workers employed at Caterpillar's Springettsbury Township plant, walked off the job.

In January 1996, more than a month after the Caterpillar workers' strike had ended, the company informed United Auto Workers officials that it would start to close its local manufacturing plant unless the union agreed to a contract.

The company closed the plant in 1998 and shifted the work to new factories in South Danville, Ky.; Sumter, S.C.; Oxford, Miss.; and Morganton, N.C.